The Darkest Hour is the sixth and final book in the original Warrior Cats series (aka The Prophecies Begin).
One rainy night, two forest cats run through the city streets: Tigerstar, and one of his warriors, Boulder. They're on their way to meet a cat named Scourge - the leader of the city cats, whose followers would kill without question if he asked them to. Finally, they get to him, and Tigerstar is contemptuous, since Scourge is only the size of an apprentice - Boulder quickly warns him to show respect. Scourge recognizes Boulder as a former city cat, and impatiently asks why he's come back. Tigerstar steps forward and tells Scourge that he has a proposition for him.
The main story picks up a few minutes after the end of A Dangerous Path. Fireheart, Stonefur, Mistyfoot, and Graystripe bring Bluestar's body back to the camp, checking to make sure is all clear and the dogs are definitely gone. Fireheart sends Graystripe to bring the Clan back from Sunningrocks, and Stonefur and Mistyfoot spend some time alone with Bluestar's body, grieving for their mother, who they never had really gotten a chance to know. The ThunderClan cats arrive back at camp, telling Fireheart about their own experiences, and then they discover Mistyfoot and Stonefur. ThunderClan is upset that they're there, but then Mistyfoot announces that Bluestar was their mother. Fireheart suggests that the two of them leave, and then he explains to the Clan how Bluestar gave up her kits. That night, the Clan holds the mourning ceremony for Bluestar.
The next morning, it's time for Fireheart to travel to the Moonstone with Cinderpelt to receive his nine lives and name. He falls asleep at the Moonstone that night, and is visited by StarClan. He receives nine lives from Clanmates he had known, each with a gift: Lionheart (courage), Redtail (justice), Silverstream (loyalty to what he knows to be right), Runningwind (tireless energy), Brindleface (protection), Swiftpaw (mentoring), Yellowfang (compassion), Spottedleaf (love), and Bluestar (nobility, certainty, and faith). Just after StarClan calls him by his new name Firestar, though, a hill of bones suddenly appears, with blood flowing out of it. Bluestar hisses a prophecy: "Four will become two. Lion and Tiger will meet in battle, and blood will rule the forest." Firestar and Cinderpelt travel home, stopping to visit Ravenpaw and Barley on the way. He names Whitestorm his deputy - a popular choice in the Clan.
Returning from hunting the next day, Fireheart, Graystripe, and Bramblepaw find Darkstripe whispering something to Sorrelkit, who collapses. They quickly discover that she's eaten deathberries, and Cinderpelt treats her, but they aren't sure whether she will live.
The next day, Firestar patrols with Mousefur and Thornpaw. They discover some unfamiliar scents, but since the cats they came from aren't in the territory anymore, they put it out of their mind. Firestar holds a Clan meeting, where he makes Thornpaw a warrior (with the name of Thornclaw), and gives Lostface the new name of Brightheart. After the meeting, Sorrelkit wakes up. She tells Firestar that she saw Darkstripe meeting Blackfoot, and that Darkstripe had spotted her and given her the berries as a treat. Firestar immediately calls the Clan together again, where he confronts Darkstripe. Darkstripe refuses to explain himself, so Firestar banishes him, and, since Fernpaw now has no mentor, he makes Longtail her new mentor. Firestar later decides to tell Cinderpelt about the omen that had appeared after his leader ceremony, but she has no suggestions as to what it might mean.
The next Gathering comes soon afterward. Firestar plans to tell all of the Clans about Tigerstar's treachery, but when they get there, ShadowClan and RiverClan arrive together, announcing great change. It turns out that the two Clans have joined, creating "TigerClan". He suggests WindClan and ThunderClan join, but they refuse. Furious, Firestar begins to tell the Clans about Tigerstar, but before he can get very far into his story, a storm starts and Tigerstar claims it's a sign that the Gathering is over.
A few days later, Spottedleaf appears to Firestar, showing him a vision of himself as a lion. Startled, he tries to figure out what it has to do with "Lion and Tiger will meet in battle". He realizes "Tiger" must be TigerClan, but he wonders if he has to make a Clan called LionClan to fight it.
One night, Ravenpaw arrives to pay his respects to Bluestar's resting place. Graystripe, meanwhile, is worried about his kits being in TigerClan, since Tigerstar knows that he's their father. Firestar, Graystripe, and Ravenpaw sneak into RiverClan territory to check on them. They come upon TigerClan holding a "trial" of all half-Clan cats - Mistyfoot, Stonefur, Featherpaw, and Stormpaw - becuase he claims their mixed blood makes them disloyal. He says that Stonefur will be welcomed back as a loyal warrior if he kills Featherpaw and Stormpaw, but he refuses. He is Defiant to the End as Darkstripe and Blackfoot attack him, killing him for disloyalty. Tigerstar decides to keep Featherpaw and Stormpaw alive for the time being. Firestar and his two friends discover where Tigerstar's keeping the half-Clan cats prisoner, so Ravenpaw lures the guard away, and they are able to get Mistyfoot and Graystripe's kits onto ThunderClan territory. They get back to camp, only to discover that Tawnypaw has disappeared.
The next day, Mudclaw arrives at the ThunderClan camp, badly injured. He says that TigerClan has attacked their camp, and they are badly outnumbered. ThunderClan rushes to the rescue, but it's too late: TigerClan is already gone, leaving behind a dead Gorsepaw (who Firestar had once helped carry on the way to bring WindClan home) and a message from Tigerstar: WindClan and ThunderClan must meet him at Fourtrees the next day to join TigerClan, or else they would get what Gorsepaw did. They meet there the next day, preparing to fight. Bramblepaw realizes that Tawnypaw has joined TigerClan, but he refuses to do the same when Tigerstar offers. The two Clans give Tigerstar their answer, but instead of a fight starting, many, many cats come into the clearing, some of them wearing collars studded with teeth. Tigerstar introduces them as BloodClan, and orders them to attack WindClan and ThunderClan, but they don't move, awaiting an order from their leader, Scourge. Firestar takes this opportunity to tell all of the Clans about Tigerstar's past. Scourge replies that he will think about what Firestar has told him, and that they will not fight today. Tigerstar angrily leaps at Scourge, who takes one swipe at him - Firestar realizes that Scourge's claws are reinforced with sharpened dogs' teeth - and tears a massive wound from his shoulder to his tail. Tigerstar loses all nine of his lives at once. As the horrified Clans watch in silence, Scourge tells Firestar that BloodClan needs more territory. The forest cats have three days to either leave the forest - or meet BloodClan in battle.
Firestar and Tallstar immediately come to an agreement to fight. ThunderClan spends the next two days preparing for the battle. Ravenpaw and Barley visit ThunderClan and announce that they are going to help fight. Barley tells Firestar that he used to be a BloodClan cat as a kit, and he explains that Scourge's one greatest strength is also his greatest weakness: he doesn't believe in StarClan. Firestar visits his sister Princess, telling her about the battle. Through the day, he still feels pretty hopeless, and shouts at StarClan, angrily asking why they allow things such as Tigerstar and BloodClan to happen, if they rule the forest. They appear to him and explain that they do not rule the forest, that they are simply The Watcher. Bluestar still manages to reassure Firestar, though. On the third day they visit TigerClan, where they convince Leopardstar to have ShadowClan and RiverClan join the fight, because only when all four forest Clans are combined can they hope to defeatBloodClan.
Finally, the morning of the battle arrives. The forest Clans - temporarily one united Clan known as LionClan - meet there, and then BloodClan comes. The fight begins. During the battle, Darkstripe attempts to murder Firestar, but is killed himself by Graystripe. ThunderClan sustains a severe loss: Whitestorm is fatally wounded by Bone, the BloodClan deputy. He has just enough time to name Graystripe deputy before he dies. Firestar finally meets Scourge, and the two fight. Firestar loses a life, and meets with StarClan while his body recovers. They encourage him, and give him the emotional strength he needs to finish it. This is when he realizes what Barley had meant: since Scourge has no faith in StarClan, he does not have nine lives. Once again, they fight. Firestar uses a trick from his apprentice days, and gains the upper paw in the battle, finally killing Scourge. With the death of their leader, the remaining BloodClan cats flee.
The Clans gather together and lick their wounds afterward. WindClan eagerly chases off all of the remaining BloodClanners. Leopardstar has decided that TigerClan is no more. Blackfoot will be the new ShadowClan leader, since as Tigerstar's deputy he succeeds him in leadership, and Leopardstar has named Mistyfoot her new deputy. Graystripe's kits go back to RiverClan, since that's their home. Tawnypaw, however, decides to remain in ShadowClan, because that's where she feels that she can be the best warrior possible. Barley and Ravenpaw return to their own home. Firestar sits with the cats who are dearest to him - Sandstorm, his mate; Graystripe, the best friend a cat could have; and Bramblepaw, the eager apprentice who proved his loyalty - and watches the sunrise, which is the most beautiful he has ever seen.
Tropes that appear in this book:
- Agonizing Stomach Wound: When Scourge slices Tigerstar up the belly, the wound is deep enough to make him die nine times over, in slow, agonizing pain.
- Almost Dead Guy: Two in the battle toward the end of the book:
- After Bone strikes him down, Whitestorm reassures Firestar that it's been a pleasure being deputy and tells him that Graystripe was always destined to be his deputy before dying.
- Darkstripe rambles aimlessly as he dies. Strangely, it actually worked as a send off for the character.
- American Kirby Is Hardcore: Inverted with the Japanese cover of the book. While the book itself has a considerable body count and one of the most gruesome deaths in the series, the Japanese cover
◊ shows two fluffy kitties smiling. - Asskicking Leads to Leadership: BloodClan works this way. Scourge can kill a cat in one blow; he's leader. Bone is huge and also a powerful fighter; he's second in command.
- Avenging the Villain: Darkstripe attempts to kill Firestar as vengeance for Tigerstar's death, since he claims Firestar turned Scourge against Tigerstar.
- Awesome Moment of Crowning: Firestar's leadership ceremony is widely considered to be one of the best moments of the entire series.
- Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Scourge kills Tigerstar, so Firestar's never put in a position where he has to genuinely consider it.
- Bathroom Break-Out: Darkstripe is being watched by Brackenfur since he's suspected of being a traitor. He tells Brackenfur he needs to make dirt, so he goes behind a bush for privacy and sneaks off.
- Beyond the Impossible: Scourge when he takes out all of Tigerstar's nine lives at once. A leader is supposed to be temporarily dead once killed, only to revive later. To take out all nine at once is unprecedented.
- Big Badass Battle Sequence: The BloodClan battle. BloodClan, a huge group of city cats (enough to take on around 100 forest cats) with a leader who can kill a Clan leader's nine lives in one blow, gives the forest Clans three days to either leave the forest or meet them in battle. The forest Clans spend the three days weighing their options, training, having medicine cats prepare herbs, and coming up with an escape strategy for the defenseless kits and elders if they fail. All four Clans join together to face BloodClan, and the battle itself lasts about a day.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Tigerstar is the most active villain of the book and a great deal of time is used to build up the final battle between him and Firestar... only for Scourge to kill him and usurp his position as the main antagonist of the story during the final third of the book.
- Big Guy, Little Guy: The two main BloodClan cats are Scourge and Bone. Scourge is the leader, and is unusually small because he was born a runt, while Bone is his massive, brutish second-in-command.
- Blasphemous Boast: Tigerstar claims that he is more powerful than StarClan because he changed the number of Clans in the forest from four to two.
- Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Fireheart becomes the first kittypet-born Clan leader in the Clans' memory.
- Bullying a Dragon: Tigerstar dies because of this. He tries to push around Scourge, who gets tired of him and kills him. Nine times. In one blow.
- Cain and Abel: Firestar kills Scourge who is his half-brother, though the fact that they're related is only hinted at in one of the side books (neither one is aware of it) and confirmed by the authors.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Tigerstar decides to spare Featherpaw and Stormpaw because he thinks they may still be useful to him.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Barley had been a minor character in the series so far, but The Darkest Hour reveals that he's an ex-BloodClan member, and he's able to tell Firestar about BloodClan and even hint at Scourge's greatest weakness.
- Cover Identity Anomaly: While trying to rescue some of Tigerstar's prisoners, Ravenpaw pretends to be a RiverClan cat and tells the guard, Jaggedtooth, that Tigerstar's summoned him and that he's supposed to take over as guard while Jaggedtooth is gone. Jaggedtooth is instantly suspicious because Tigerstar had declared that only ShadowClan cats can guard them. Ravenpaw simply says he'll tell Tigerstar that Jaggedtooth wouldn't come, and Jaggedtooth decides that if Tigerstar really did give a command then it's best to obey it.
- Creepy Souvenir: Members of BloodClan collect teeth from cats and dogs they have killed, wearing them as Spikes of Villainy on their collars.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Tigerstar. Tigerstar, Tigerstar, Tigerstar. Having his stomach torn open probably hurt a good bit.
- Cryptic Conversation: The whole conversation with Barley about how Scourge's biggest weakness is that he doesn't believe in StarClan. Firestar doesn't realize what he means until during the battle, when he sees how stunned Scourge is that he came back to life. Couldn't Barley have just said that Scourge doesn't have nine lives?
- Cue the Sun: The book ends with a rising sun....and it seemed to Firestar that no dawn had ever been brighter.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Scourge manages to kill Tigerstar, one of the forest's most feared warriors, with a single blow.
- Darkest Hour: Exactly What It Says on the Tin. This is one of the darkest times the Clans have seen, with Tigerstar finally trying to take over the forest, and then being faced with the threat of being driven out or destroyed by BloodClan.
- Dark Horse Victory: When Firestar and Tigerstar reach their final showdown, Tigerstar reveals that he has an ally named Scourge, who proceeds to kill both Tigerstar and Firestar. Fortunately, Firestar comes back from the dead with eight lives remaining, or else Scourge would have ruled the whole forest.
- Dark Is Evil: Tigerclaw, the Big Bad, is a dark brown tabby. Darkstripe, the traitor who tried to murder a kit, is gray with dark black stripes. Scourge, who tries to take over the forest after killing Tigerstar, is black.
- The Darkness Before Death: Darkstripe's last words as he dies are "It's all dark - everything's gone..."
- The Day of Reckoning: The confrontation with Tigerstar and then BloodClan serves as this for the original series.
- Death Is Dramatic: Tigerstar, the main villain for the last six books, is ripped open from throat to tail and loses all nine of his lives from blood loss. Firestar, who had expected that he would need to fight Tigerstar to the death someday, can only watch in horror.
- Death of a Child: The young apprentice Gorsepaw of WindClan is murdered by Tigerstar just to send a message to Firestar and Tallstar.
- Decapitated Army: After Firestar kills Scourge, the leader of BloodClan, one of the BloodClan cats notices and yowls that Scourge is dead. The fight goes out of all the BloodClan cats and they flee.
- Defiant to the End: Stonefur, who, when given a chance to kill Featherpaw and Stormpaw to prove his loyalty, tells Tigerstar that he'll die before he kills them. Tigerstar obliges by ordering Darkstripe to kill him. Even though Stonefur has been starved for an extended period of time and is weak, he manages to have the upper paw for a while until Tigerstar sends in Blackfoot to help and finish Stonefur off.
- Diabolus ex Nihilo: Tigerstar had nine lives at the beginning of the book. In order to avoid making him seem like a pathetic weakling, the authors had a random cat called Scourge show up, instakill all of Tigerstar's nine lives, kill the protagonist Firestar, and try to take over the Clans.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Tigerstar is the main villain, but partway through the book the position of primary villain is usurped by Scourge, who kills him.
- Doctor's Orders: After Firestar's nine lives ceremony, Cinderpelt informs him that she's ordering him, as his medicine cat, to get some rest.
- Double Don't Know: One occurs in this book:
- Firestar let out a long breath. "I don't know, Bramblepaw," he admitted. "I just don't know."
- Empathic Environment: Fireheart thinks about how the weather fits the mood of what's going on:A vast, unnatural silence covered everything. With the rational part of his mind, Fireheart realized that all the prey had been scared away by the rampaging dog pack, but in the grip of his grief it seemed that even the forest was stunned into mourning Bluestar.
- Epiphany Therapy: When Firestar fears that Scourge will crush the Clans, he laments that there were always four Clans in the forest, but Scourge is trying to change that. Then StarClan tell him that there were never four Clans, there were always five. Cue Firestar realizing that StarClan is always with him, and that while he has StarClan's support and the gift of nine lives, Scourge does not.
- Evil Plan:
- Tigerstar's current plan to take over the whole forest is to join all four Clans together to form "TigerClan", starting by teaming up with RiverClan. He suspects that he'll have a harder time convincing WindClan and ThunderClan, so he's also made an alliance with the vicious BloodClan from Twolegplace to make sure he outnumbers the two other Clans. And then, once all four Clans are under his control, they drive BloodClan out.
- Scourge. His real motivation is to kill Tigerstar, who once beat the snot out of him. He successfully does this, but after that he decides the forest is a pretty cool place and that he wants to stay; he just has to drive out those pesky Clans first.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Inverted with Scourge, who has a high-pitched voice.
- Evil Versus Evil: Tigerstar vs. Scourge.
- Expecting Someone Taller: Both Firestar and Tigerstar initially think that Scourge's much bigger deputy is the leader of BloodClan, as they're not expecting such a small cat to be leader. When Tigerstar meets Scourge for the first time, he even blurts out, "That's Scourge? He's no bigger than an apprentice!"
- Family-Unfriendly Death: Tigerstar being ripped open down the middle.
- Fatal Flaw: Scourge's lack of belief in StarClan. He doesn't have nine lives, so when he's killed, he's dead for good.
- Field Promotion: Firestar did this when Whitestorm died during the BloodClan battle, naming Graystripe deputy mid-battle rather than waiting to hold the usually performed ceremony.
- Final Battle: The BloodClan battle serves as this for the first arc of the series.
- First Snow: Firestar is out with his apprentice Bramblepaw when it begins to snow. Bramblepaw is confused at what it is at first, and then chases the snowflakes gleefully, and Fireheart wonders whether Bramblepaw's evil father Tigerstar ever played with snowflakes.
- Go and Sin No More: For the whole first series, Blackfoot has been one of the antagonists, a Dragon of the villains who attempts to kidnap kits and manages to murder several cats. After Tigerstar's death, he's set to become leader of ShadowClan. Even though some of Blackfoot's crimes are recent, The Hero Firestar simply warns him to learn from his predecessors, and Blackfoot does go on to become a much better leader than the cats he served.
- The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: ThunderClan and WindClan, the two heroic Clans, team up with ShadowClan and RiverClan, the two villainous Clans, to fight a worse evil: Scourge, who wants to take over their territory with his vicious BloodClan.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: When Jaggedtooth is guarding Tigerstar's prisoners, Ravenpaw pretends to be a RiverClan cat and tells him that he'll take over as guard for a bit since Tigerstar wants Jaggedtooth to report to him. Despite Jaggedtooth not recognizing Ravenpaw, and he himself pointing out that Tigerstar declared that only ShadowClan cats are allowed to guard them, he still leaves the prisoners alone with the stranger, enabling them to escape.
- Gutted Like a Fish: Tigerstar is killed in this manner when the cat he tried to order around got fed up with it - the wound is bad enough that he loses all of his nine leader's lives. One apprentice even refers to it in this way when a group of them reenacts his death in one of the manga.
- Half-Breed Discrimination: Mistyfoot and Stonefur, and Graystripe's kits Stormpaw and Featherpaw, are all half-RiverClan and half-ThunderClan. Some of their Clanmates are prejudiced against half-Clan cats, and this becomes dangerous for them when Tigerstar decides to start persecuting cats of mixed ancestry.
- Handicapped Badass: Brightheart lost an eye at a young age. This does not stop her from learning how to fight just as well as others (despite having a blind side) and becoming a fully competent warrior.
- Happily Adopted:
- Mistyfoot and Stonefur were adopted by the RiverClan cat Graypool, who had just lost her own kits. They grew up believing that she actually was their mother. In this book they have accepted that Bluestar was their birth mother and that there is no shame in having such a noble cat as a parent.
- Brindleface adopts Cloudkit when Cloudkit's mother gives him up to be raised as a Clan cat. Cloudkit was a newborn when given to the Clan, so until Fireheart explained to the kit his parentage, Cloudkit thought Brindleface was his mother. When Fireheart bocames Clan leader, he receives a life from Brindleface and in the process feels the love she has for her kits, including Cloudtail just as much as her own.
- Healthy in Heaven: This occurs to Clan cats who go to StarClan. In StarClan, cats' illnesses disappear and they're presented as the age they were happiest in life (for instance, Yellowfang appears as the elder she was in ThunderClan, while Bluestar appears in her prime.)
- Heroic Second Wind: Occurs when Firestar fights Scourge. Scourge actually kills him once, and assumes he's gone forever, but since Firestar has nine lives, he comes back later. Firestar's triumphant return is somewhat of a shock to Scourge, and he comes back apparently fighting with the power of StarClan. However, Firestar's I Surrender, Suckers is the actual deciding factor in the battle.
- Hitler Ate Sugar: A variant with Tigerstar, the series equivalent of Hitler. When apprentice Tawnypaw, Tigerstar's daughter, is slightly late bringing moss to the elder Smallear, Smallear says, "Tigerstar didn't want to serve the elders either when he was an apprentice! You're going to turn out just like him!"
- Icy Blue Eyes: Scourge has ice-blue eyes, which adds to his creepiness as a villainous dictator.
- I Surrender, Suckers: Firestar uses this old trick from his apprentice days to beat Scourge.
- It Has Been an Honor: Whitestorm. "I've been proud to serve as your deputy."
- Join or Die: How Tigerstar operates. One particularly notable moment is when his son defied him:
- Juxtaposed Reflection Poster: The original cover for "The Darkest Hour" showed Firestar drinking from a puddle of water and seeing a lion staring back at him, reflecting the plot of him being the eventual leader of LionClan in the fight against TigerClan and, later, BloodClan. It's also symbolic of his overall bravery and destiny to be a great leader.
- Kangaroo Court: Tigerstar holds what he calls a "trial" for his prisoners. It's really nothing but a rally to whip up hatred against half-Clan cats so that their own Clanmates would mistrust them enough to want them driven out or killed.
- Karma Houdini: Blackfoot. He was one of the minions of two different Big Bads, killed a ThunderClan elder while trying to kidnap some kits, and murdered the RiverClan deputy in cold blood in front of the entire Clan. He then goes on to be Clan leader, and Firestar lets him off with what can best be described as a stern warning. None of this is ever mentioned ever again.
- Keeping the Enemy Close: Firestar thinks that Darkstripe will be less than a threat in ThunderClan - where Firestar can keep an eye on him - than he would be if he left to join Tigerstar. This doesn't last long, however: just a few days later, Darkstripe attempts to poison a kit that saw him scheming with Tigerstar's deputy, Blackfoot.
- Killed Offscreen: Firestar and a ThunderClan patrol rush to the aid of WindClan when Tigerstar's cats ambush their camp, and they arrive to find that Tigerstar had murdered Gorsepaw before they got there.
- Killer Finale: The Darkest Hour is the last book in the first arc, and involves the deaths of the main villain Tigerstar and several recurring characters: Darkstripe, Stonefur, Whitestorm, and Gorsepaw.
- Large and in Charge: Inverted with Scourge, who is so tiny that most characters wonder what the heck he's doing sitting next to Bone, who is enormous (and Scourge's Dragon). Scourge quickly proves that his small size gives him speed and agility, which coupled with his ruthlessness make him one of the most lethal combatants in the series.
- Loser Son of Loser Dad: Bramblepaw and Tawnypaw are treated poorly by their Clanmates for this reason. Who's their dad? Tigerstar.
- Make an Example of Them: Tigerstar murders Gorsepaw in cold blood; Tallstar and Firestar know that he did it to send a message to them on what to expect if they continue defying him.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Darkstripe gave Sorrelkit deathberries to eat; if Graystripe hadn't seen what happened, every cat would have just assumed she found the berries and didn't know what they were. Even when caught, Darkstripe claimed that he was telling her not to eat the berries, and they had to wait until Sorrelkit recovered enough to tell her story to know for sure.
- Make Way for the New Villains: Scourge rips Tigerstar apart, killing him many times in one blow. Scourge goes on to become the villain of the book.
- Mama Bear: Queens will do anything to protect their kits. When Firestar is receiving his nine leader's lives, Brindleface gives him a life with the love a mother has for her kits. He expects this life to feel warm and comforting, but is surprised by the ferocity of it.
- Meaningful Rename: Firestar performs a ceremony to give Lostface the new name Brightheart. He particularly chose the suffix in honor of her spirit, which shone through despite the darkness she went through. He also promotes his first warrior: Thornpaw was given his warrior name, Thornclaw.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: Whitestorm, who has been a mentor figure to Firestar for a good portion of the series (particularly the later half of the arc), dies at the climax of the book.
- Mirrored Confrontation Shot: The Chinese cover has Firestar and Scourge facing each other.
- Mirror Scare: Firestar sees a lion reflected in water, and is so startled that he runs backward into a tree and yowls loud enough that some of his Clanmates come running. Turns out the lion isn't actually a reflection of something real; it's a vision sent to him by StarClan hinting at something he must do.
- Mister Big: Scourge. A tiny cat barely larger than a kitten, but also the leader of BloodClan and universally feared by all who know of him, and for good reason. No one is either brave or stupid enough to joke about his size, particularly since he uses it to great effect in combat, by slipping out of holds and generally being faster than his opponent.
- Mutual Kill: An odd example. Firestar, the protagonist, is killed by the villainous Scourge. However, Firestar literally has nine lives, and he gets back up to continue fighting. With the warriors of StarClan at his side, Firestar realizes that Scourge does not believe in StarClan, and only has to die once. Thus Firestar is able to defeat and kill Scourge. So both combatants die, but one is okay.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast:
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: Tigerstar, who begins openly persecuting and murdering half-Clan cats.
- Near-Villain Victory: Scourge kills Firestar, and is about to defeat LionClan when Firestar, who is Only Mostly Dead, is revived by StarClan, to kill Scourge. This is because Firestar was given nine lives. However, there was still an off-chance that he would have died, given that Scourge killed the previous Big Bad, who also had nine lives, with one stroke.
- New Era Speech: Tigerstar gives one at a Gathering when he announces the formation of TigerClan.
- Odd Name Out: We finally learn why Boulder has such an odd name compared to all his Clanmates that have normal Clan names; he grew up in BloodClan and had that name there before joining ShadowClan.
- Older Than They Look: Scourge, mostly because of his small size. Firestar even mistakes him for an apprentice at first.
- Old Master: Whitestorm gets a special mention in that he is one of the oldest active warriors and his age is mentioned multiple times, but he's still a powerful fighter and is popular with all of ThunderClan. That is, of course, before he is killed.
- Papa Wolf: Graystripe helps his kits flee from Nazi-like TigerClan and attacks any enemy warrior that tries to hurt them.
- Pintsized Powerhouse: Scourge. Despite his small size he rips Tigerstar's stomach open, killing him nine times. He also manages to kill the main character of the series, and is so badass that he leads a legion of cats that would never dare to question him.
- Playing Possum: One of Firestar's favorite moves. When in an enemy's grasp, he goes limp, making the enemy think he or she has won. Then when they're least suspecting it, he strikes!
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Tigerstar, as well as his #1 follower, Darkstripe. Tigerstar parallels Hitler in several ways, and has attempted genocide in the form of public executions during a propaganda rally where he called halfClan cats "filth".
- Post-Victory Collapse: After defeating Scourge, Firestar collapses due to exhaustion and blood loss. Graystripe worries that Firestar's dying, but he only needs rest.
- Precision F-Strike: Tallstar refusing Tigerstar's demands and publicly calling him a "piece of foxdung" ("piece of shit") in The Darkest Hour seems to carry more weight, being said by the stereotypically calm and respectful WindClan leader.
- Prophecy Twist: "Four will become two, lion and tiger will meet in battle, and blood will rule the forest" — The four is referring to the four Clans, the lion and tiger are LionClan and TigerClan, the two factions they split into, and blood is BloodClan.
- Public Execution: Stonefur's death as a consequence of being half-Clan and refusing to kill his apprentice and apprentice's littermate. It is carried out in front of all of TigerClan (RiverClan and ShadowClan combined).
- Raised by Rival: Firestar takes Bramblepaw on as his apprentice following Tigerstar's exile from the Clan and ensuing takeover of ShadowClan. Despite caring deeply about Bramblepaw, Firestar struggles to separate the innocent apprentice from his evil, look-alike father, something Bramblepaw notices and resents.
- Resurrective Immortality: Zigzagged. Leaders have nine lives, so they can come back from being killed, but their ninth death is permanent. Some things are powerful enough to take multiple lives, such as Scourge's organ shredding blow that takes all nine of Tigerstar's in immediate succession.
- Ruler Protagonist: Firestar is ThunderClan's leader as of the start of the book. We see how leaders' nine lives work, and Firestar has to deal with decisions that affect the lives of his Clanmates and the whole forest.
- Second Love: Firestar initially fell in love with Spottedleaf. Though they never spoke about their feelings when she was alive, she continued to visit him in his dreams. In the end, though, he fell in love with Sandstorm and became her mate.
- Series Continuity Error: In the scene where Whitestorm's worrying about BloodClan reaching ThunderClan, Whitestorm's eyes are mentioned as blue. In Into the Wild, his eyes were distinctly described as being the color of sunbaked sand.
- Shoot Your Mate: Stonefur, a half-Clan cat, is told to kill two half-Clan apprentices to prove his loyalty. He refuses, sacrificing his life to save the apprentices.
- Signature Move: Firestar's favourite move is his Playing Possum skill. He even uses it to defeat Scourge, the Final Boss of the original series.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Tigerstar claims he's greater than StarClan after changing the number of Clans from 4 to 2.
- Sneaky Departure: It's revealed that Darkstripe has been sneaking away from ThunderClan camp to meet with Tigerstar and give him intel on what ThunderClan is up to.
- Snooping Little Kid: Sorrelkit knows that Darkstripe is supposed to have Brackenfur guarding him, and is curious to know what he's doing when he sneaks off on his own. He spots her and tricks her into eating poisonous berries so that she can't reveal that she saw him plotting with an enemy warrior; fortunately she survives.
- Speak in Unison: StarClan is described as sounding like every cat Firestar has ever known, all speaking at once in one clear voice.
- Spikes of Villainy: Scourge wears a collar studded with dog teeth; many cats in his Clan, BloodClan, wear similar collars as well.
- The Starscream: Scourge was generally treated as an underling by Tigerstar before slitting his throat and killing him nine times over with the emotion one would reserve for swatting a fly.
- Sympathetic Wince: Fireheart winces when hearing the pain in Bramblepaw's voice as the apprentice begs his sister to come back to their Clan.
- Sympathy for the Devil: When Tigerstar is killed, Firestar reflects on the fact that normally he'd be relieved or happy that this dangerous cat is gone, but all he feels staring down at Tigerstar's body is grief. Tigerstar had been gifted with strength, intelligence, and charisma, and he could have become a legend as one of the greatest warriors in history had he not chosen to follow a dark path.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Tigerstar's death. Killed by having nine internal organs cut through (per word of the authors), therefore losing all nine of his leader's lives at once.
- Throne Made of X: When Tigerstar takes control of both RiverClan and ShadowClan, he has them build him the Bonehill, a pile of bones to sit on so he can look down on everyone else.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: Tigerstar seems to be a good leader at first when he becomes leader, rebuilding ShadowClan's strength, but he still tries to get back at his former ThunderClanners. But in The Darkest Hour, he takes over the RiverClan camp, starts up propaganda against half-Clan cats and executes them, and attacks WindClan to put fear into them and show what would happen if they did not join TigerClan (a mix of ShadowClan and RiverClan). It was his tyranny that brings him to his bloody end, as an even fiercer tyrant named Scourge rips him open from head to tail.
- Vagueness Is Coming: Many prophecies in the series vaguely foretell destruction and danger without actually managing to tell the Clans what exactly is coming. This includes the one in this book: "Blood will rule the forest."
- Villain Opening Scene: The prologue focuses on Big Bad Tigerstar enlisting the help of Scourge.
- Visionary Villain: Tigerstar wanted to unite all the Clans into one, ending the constant war and bringing about a new age of prosperity. Of course, his ego and his methods were less than desirable.
- We Can Rule Together: Tigerstar convinces RiverClan and ShadowClan to combine into one Clan, and offers the other two Clans the chance to join, saying the all the leaders will rule jointly. Tallstar and Firestar refuse, and Tigerstar snarls to Firestar that he just gave up his last chance to save ThunderClan.
- Wolverine Claws: Scourge has a feline version of this: he wears sharpened dogs' teeth over his actual claws, making them unnaturally strong and deadly. He's dangerous enough with them to take out a Clan leader's nine lives with one blow.
- The Worf Effect: The newly-introduced villain Scourge kills Tigerstar when all of the Clans are gathered, for spite, to intimidate the Clans into complying with his demands, and (we learn later) for revenge.
- Worf Had the Flu: Tigerstar sends Blackfoot to kill Stonefur, who he has in captivity. Blackfoot defeats Stonefur, but only because Tigerstar had been starving him for several days, and because Stonefur was tired from fighting Darkstripe just minutes earlier.
- Would Hurt a Child:
- Tigerstar kills Gorsepaw for no other reason than to bring fear to WindClan.
- Darkstripe attempts to kill Sorrelkit because she caught him meeting Blackfoot on their territory.
- You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!: After Tigerstar's death, Firestar reflects on how Tigerstar could have been one of the greatest cats the Clans had known, but that he'd misused his skill and natural abilities in his quest for power and that it had eventually led to his end.
- Young and in Charge: Fireheart is noted to be an extremely young leader; Bluestar made him deputy at a young age, and the warrior code states that deputy succeeds leader. If his training had taken the usual six-moons length, he would have been a warrior for only two moons at the age he became deputy.
